Two or three suicide bombers attacked the domestic and international terminals at Istanbul’s Ataturk international airport on Tuesday night, leaving at least 41 dead and 230 injured. DEBKA file notes that June 28 is the ond anniversary of the establishment of the “Islamic caliphate” in Syria and Iraq and the self-appointment of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as its head.

Tehran has scooped Turkey and the US on the Kurdish issue by engineering a moonlight flit from their northern Iraqi bases and command centers to Iran, thus grabbing control of the central Kurdish issue.

French President Francois Hollande placed the country on high domestic terror alert Saturday, Jan. 12, in case of retaliatory attacks by al Qaeda for French operations against two of its African wings: a failed mission to rescue a French hostage from the Somali Shabaab, and air and commando aid for the Mali army’s drive to stop advancing Islamists. The Islamists threatened to execute at least eight French hostages, one by one, unless French forces pulled out of Somalia and Mali at once.